Dirty Laundry
12
2015
A few days had passed since The Summer Set joined the tour and Riley's biggest secret was no longer a total secret. Brian refused to speak with Riley and Riley basically did her best to avoid everyone. She claimed she had caught some kind of summer flu and was trying to keep her germs to herself by staying away. Alex knew better, but respecting his girlfriend's wishes, he went along with the flu story anyway.
The whole thing was quite draining for Alex because Riley wouldn't talk to him about it and he didn't know how to help her. He was pretty excited for a day off in Indianapolis. He spent most of the afternoon hanging by their hotel's pool with some of the guys, Cassadee (who was out for a short visit) and Summer. Riley, of course, was stillsick and stayed in their room.Alex had decided that he was going to let Riley be for a week and once that time frame was up, he was going to have to do something.
Just before dinner time, Alex and Summer returned to their room to shower quickly before meeting the group in the lobby. Summer tried to convince Riley to come with them, but she politely declined. Summer accepted her denial and promised to bring her back something to eat.
They had ultimately planned on going out somewhere more adult that evening but after spending the entire day with Summer, every single one of the guys felt bad ditching her at dinner time and happily accepted her recommendation of Chili's as a place to eat.
When Alex returned to his room later that night, he was happy to see Riley sitting on a lounge chair on the balcony with a book and a glass of wine. As he walked closer to her, he noticed her hair was wet and she had changed into different pajamas, which meant she showered so she was attempting to be normal.
"Hey," Alex said quietly when he was stood over the lounge chair. He could tell she was wrapped up in her book and didn't want to startle her.
Riley quickly turned her head up and smiled when she saw Alex. "Hey," she greeted him back, leaning upward to meet him halfway when Alex bent down to give her a kiss. "How was dinner?" she asked.
"You were missed, of course. But it was good," Alex answered, carefully sitting in the empty space of the lounge chair next to Riley. "Summer insisted on bringing you back something to eat so there's a to-go box with chicken fingers and fries inside if you're hungry."
"Thanks," she smiled, reaching for and holding up her wine glass. "Sounds like chicken fingers and fries will compliment my beverage choice well. I hope you don't mind that I opened one of the wine bottles from the mini-bar."
"Of course not," Alex said quietly with a shake of his head.
"You okay?" Riley asked, placing her glass back down and reaching for his hand.
Alex nodded. "I'm okay. The real question is if you're okay..."
Riley shrugged. "I will be," she answered truthfully.
Alex nodded slowly. "So, I'm okay and you will be okay. So that means Alex and Riley, as a pair, are also okay, right?"
Riley gave him a small smile and squeezed his hand. "Alex and Riley are perfectly okay."
"Okay," Alex repeated, satisfied. "I just like to keep checking."
Riley leaned forward again to kiss him but pulled back quickly when she realized something was missing. "Um, where's my child?"
Alex quickly brought his palm to his forehead and let out an overdramatic sigh. "Crap. I knew I was forgetting something..."
"You're such a jerk," Riley grumbled, reaching for her book and smacking Alex in the forearm.
"Ow," he frowned. "Relax. She's with Cass and Rian."
"Oh," Riley paused, looking at her cell phone to check the time. "Why?"
"Well, when Cass heard that you still weren't feeling well, she offered for her and Rian to take Summer for the night," Alex explained.
Riley let her eyebrows raise. "Why?"
Alex shrugged. "Because they're wonderful friends and Cass thought you could use a full night in a real bed to catch up on some rest and relaxation without having to worry about Summer."
Riley immediately felt guilty since clearly Alex knew she wasn't really sick. "But isn't this one of her last nights with Rian?"
Alex shrugged. "I don't know, babe. She offered. I told her it wasn't necessary but Cass insisted and then gave Rian some look and then Rian suddenly started insisting. Then Summer got all excited about the idea of a sleepover and it was a done deal from there."
"It's fine," Riley shrugged. "I just feel bad that Cassadee is giving up a night alone with her boyfriend, for me, for a bull crap reason."
"Well," Alex shifted uncomfortably in his seat next to her. "Maybe we can take advantage of this night alone."
Riley rolled her eyes. "Really?"
"That's not what I meant," Alex defended himself. "I was thinking that maybe we can talk through all of this shit finally."
"Alex..." Riley said with a long sigh.
"Look," he cut her off. "I get that whatever happened really has nothing to do with me. And I respect that. But I hate seeing you like this and I just want to fix it."
Riley shook her head. "I appreciate that, Alex, but I don't think this is something you can just fix."
"I know but I love you so I have to try."
Riley opened her mouth to say something but was interrupted by the ring of Alex's cell phone.He held up the screen to show it was Rian and answered quickly.
"Hello?"
"Hi Alex!" It was Summer. "We just got back to Rian and Cassadee's room so you can bring me my stuff now."
"You got it. I'll get it all together now and meet you down there in a few minutes."
"Okay. Don't forget Yoda!"
"I won't," Alex assured her.
"Okay, love you!"
Alex smiled to himself. "Love you, too, kid," he replied before they both ended the call.
Riley had a smile on her face as she watched Alex on the phone with Summer. It still absolutely warmed her heart at how close they were.
"All good?" she asked when he stood up and put his phone in his pocket.
"Yeah," Alex nodded. "On the way back from dinner, they stopped for sleepover snacks. They just got back to Rian's room so I'm going to gather Summer's stuff up and run it down to her."
"I'll go with you," Riley said, swinging her legs to the side of the chair.
"That's okay," Alex shook his head. "You stay. Read your book," he gestured to the Harry Potter book that sat next to her. "Maybe the Half Blood Prince will end differently this time."
Riley rolled her eyes at his joke and stood up. "I'm coming," she said and started walking inside their room.
"Okay," Alex replied, following her back inside. "Just don't forget to act sick."
"Shut up," Riley said, shooting him a glare as she dug through Summer's suitcase for a clean pair of pajamas and a change of clothes for the next morning.
Alex laughed as he grabbed Summer's pillow and stuffed Yoda doll off her bed. "I can't believe she still insists on sleeping with this thing," he said, waving the doll around.
"It's like a security blanket to her. She's slept with it every night since you bought it for her when we went to Disney almost three years ago," Riley explained, stuffing Summer's clothes, tooth brush, tooth paste and hair brush into a small backpack.
"That was a good trip," Alex reminisced, coming up behind Riley and kissing her cheek.
“It was,” Riley agreed, knowing exactly what about that trip he was referring. “Ready?”
“Yep,” he nodded, grabbing his room key and shoving it in his pocket as he followed Riley out of the room and down the hall to the elevator.
“Alex?” Riley said quietly after the elevator doors closed and he pressed the button for the seventeenth floor.
“Yes, dear?”
“When we get back to the room, I think we should talk.”
Alex tilted his head slightly and stared at her for a second. “Are you sure?”
She nodded. “I have to.”
“Okay,” he nodded. “As long as you’re sure,” he said as the elevator doors opened and Riley trailed behind him towards Rian’s room.
“I’m sure,” she assured him. “It will probably be good for me to finally really talk about it.”
“Okay,” Alex said again. “I’m in.”
Alex and Riley hung out in Rian and Cassadee’s room for a little while before saying their goodnights to Summer and heading back up to their rooms. Alex excused himself to the bathroom to change his clothes quick before he and Riley got deep into their talk.
When he emerged from the bathroom, Alex found Riley sitting in the middle of their bed fidgeting with the beaded bracelet around her wrist – a habit Alex learned she had when she was nervous.
“Should I crack open another bottle of wine?” Alex asked before taking a seat on the edge of the bed.
“No,” Riley shook her head. “I’m okay – unless you want…”
“I’m good,” Alex said, positioning himself at the head of the bed, leaning against the pillows and folding his arms over his chest. “I’m ready when you are.”
“Here goes…” Riley took a deep breath.
“Brian and I met when we were seven. His family moved from Michigan to Arizona and moved into the house next door to mine. The day they moved in, my mom went right over there, with a basket of goodies I’m sure, and welcomed them to the block. I came home from wherever I was and she told me how the family moved in next door, that they had a son my age and I should be friends with him since he moved from so far away and didn’t know anyone. I kind of just brushed it off because I was a seven year old girl and seven year old boys did not interest me.
“A few days later, I was outside drawing on the driveway with chalk when Brian and his mom came home from the store. Naturally, my mom called them over and invited Brian to draw with me and I guess I liked what he could do with chalk because we were basically inseparable from then on. We were best friends. Our parents became best friends. He would come with my family on vacations and I would go with his. Sometimes our families took vacations together…”
Alex nodded along as Riley continued with her story. He appreciated the history of her and Brian’s friendship but he really just wanted know how get ended up pregnant and giving birth in London without Brian.
“Did you always sort of secretly like each other?” Alex asked.
“No,” Riley shook her head. “Growing up I never looked at him that way. He was just my friend. Our families always teased us that we were going to get married one day but we just brushed it off.”
“Okay…” Alex said slowly. “So how do you go from cute seven year olds playing with chalk to secretly giving birth to his child?”
“When we were juniors in high school Brian had mentioned to me how he was starting to feel silly since all his friends had started hooking up with girls and he hadn’t yet. I admitted to feeling to same way. I was uncomfortable doing anything because I lacked experience and also because I hadn’t found anyone that I trusted enough to do anything with.”
“So, you did it with each other and then fell in love?” Alex cut in.
“Kind of…” Riley nodded. “We agreed to do it once, just to get the hang of it and then it just sort of kept happening every once in a while and by the time we were seniors it was happening a lot. We were basically a couple without actually being a couple. We tried to hide it from our friends but we were always stealing kisses here and there when we thought no one could see but everyone knew but no one really talked about it.”
“Did you ever go on dates with other people?”
“Yeah… Every once in a while and whenever we were dating other people, we’d stop hooking up. But those relationships would never last.”
Alex nodded and gestured for her to continue.
“The summer after my first year in college is when I found out I got accepted to the arts school program in London and Brian found out the Summer Set booked their first full US tour. We were both taking big steps toward our careers and while it was scary and sucked that we were going to be apart for the better part of three years, it was also really exciting.
“I was supposed to leave for London at the end of August and Brian would be leaving for tour a few weeks after that but it was the beginning of June that I found out I was pregnant. I was terrified and thought my life was over. I had no idea what I was going to do but after talking to Brian I felt slightly better. He assured me that no matter what ended up happening, he would be there for me and would not let me go through any of this on my own.
“We talked and talked and talked about what we were going to do. I thought if I had the baby, there was no way I could go to London and Brian kept saying if I gave up my opportunity in London, he would give up his opportunity to go on tour and I refused to let him do that. I didn’t want him to lose that opportunity and it wouldn’t have been fair to the rest of the band. I did research on my own and it turns out that Brian did some on his own as well. And after talking to my doctor a bit we decided that me getting an abortion would be the best for all of us.”
Alex reached over to grab Riley’s hand and give it a reassuring squeeze. He could detect a slight quiver in her voice so he knew she was getting upset. “It’s okay…”
Riley shook her head and blinked away tears. “Clearly I didn’t go through with it. But there are still some times I look at my daughter and wonder what I would have done if I didn’t have her.”
Alex sat up and reached over and ran his thumbs under Riley’s eyes, wiping some of her tears away and gently holding her face in his hands. “We don’t have to talk about this anymore if you don’t want to…”
“I want to,” Riley insisted, sniffling slightly.
Alex passed her a tissue from the box that sat on the night stand. “Go on…”
“We scheduled the appointment for the procedure with a Planned Parenthood a few towns over. There was one not too far from where we lived but I was terrified that someone we knew would see us going in. I made sure to book the appointment for when I knew my parents were going away so if I had any bad side effects after the procedure they wouldn’t be around to question why I was sick.
“The days leading up to the appointment I felt less and less comfortable with our decision. I didn’t think I would ever be able to get over the guilt. And after going on the internet and reading stories from other women who had gone through with it, a lot of them had said even though it had been years, they still never completely got over it. I started to freak out but I couldn’t talk to anyone about it. I didn’t want my parents to know. I couldn’t talk to Aunt Penny because I knew she would just tell me that I needed to talk to Brian. But I knew if I talked to him, he would have gone along with whatever I wanted and if I told him I was thinking about keeping the baby, he would have pulled the band out from that tour and I could not let that happen.
“The day of my procedure came and I had Brian drop me off at the clinic but I refused to let him go in with me. I insisted that it was something that I needed to do alone. I hadn’t completely made up my mind with what I was going to do but as I sat in the waiting room filing out what seemed like hundreds of piece of paperwork, I realized that I couldn’t go through with it. I gave the papers back to the receptionist and got the hell out of there. I walked around the city by myself for a while before I found a coffee shop that I just sat in the back of and cried to myself on and off for hours.
“I let Brian think that I had gone through with the procedure and decided that I would still go to London and do my best juggling school and being pregnant. I refused to let Brian throw away his career to be with me so the night before I left for London, when he drove me home and we said goodbye, I basically told him it was a permanent goodbye. I don’t remember the exact words that I said because it was such a hard thing for me to do but at the time I really thought I was doing the right thing.”
Alex watched as tears slipped down her cheeks slowly and he tried to make sense of everything he was just told. “So, once you were settled in London and realized that you were handle school and raising Summer, how come you never called Brian to tell him the truth?”
Riley shrugged, wiping at her eyes again. “I was embarrassed. I knew the choices I made were stupid, beyond stupid. And I knew he would never forgive me for lying to him and for cutting him and the rest of our friends out of my life completely.”
Alex sighed. “I’m sorry, Rile, but would you blame him for not forgiving you? I mean, this is some heavy shit…”
“I know that I don’t deserve his forgiveness,” Riley said quietly, looking down at her hands. “And I understand if you think I’m a piece of shit now, too.”
“Hey,” Alex said with a tone of voice more stern than he wanted, causing Riley’s head to snap up in his direction. “I do not think that you’re a piece of shit. Yeah, this is all a lot to process right now. And while I don’t necessarily agree with what you did, I can understand why you did what you did.”
“Thanks,” she mumbled.
“Come here,” he said, crawling towards the middle of the bed and pulling her into a tight hug. The second Alex’s arms tightened around her body, something snapped inside of her and tears began to pour from her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” she repeated, pressing her face firmly into Alex’s shoulder as she cried.
“I’m not the one you need to apologize to,” Alex said, rubbing small, comforting circles across her back.
“How am I supposed to apologize to Brian if he won’t even look at me, let alone talk to me?” Riley asked, looking up at Alex with big, red, swollen eyes.
“He’ll come around; I promise,” Alex assured her, pressing a light kiss to her forehead.
“No,” Riley said quickly, shaking her head. “Do not get involved, Alex.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You have to promise me that you will not get involved.” Riley insisted.
“How can I possibly get involved? I have nothing to do with this.”
“Alex,” she said, looking him in the eye. “Promise me that you won’t talk to him and try and convince him to talk to me. I don’t want things to get weird between you guys. I do not want to ruin another friendship because of the stupid decisions I made as a teenager.”
“I promise,” Alex said, rolling his eyes.
“Alex…” she repeated.
“I will not try to get Brian to talk to you,” he promised her, pausing to hold up three fingers. “Scout’s honor.”
A few days had passed since The Summer Set joined the tour and Riley's biggest secret was no longer a total secret. Brian refused to speak with Riley and Riley basically did her best to avoid everyone. She claimed she had caught some kind of summer flu and was trying to keep her germs to herself by staying away. Alex knew better, but respecting his girlfriend's wishes, he went along with the flu story anyway.
The whole thing was quite draining for Alex because Riley wouldn't talk to him about it and he didn't know how to help her. He was pretty excited for a day off in Indianapolis. He spent most of the afternoon hanging by their hotel's pool with some of the guys, Cassadee (who was out for a short visit) and Summer. Riley, of course, was stillsick and stayed in their room.Alex had decided that he was going to let Riley be for a week and once that time frame was up, he was going to have to do something.
Just before dinner time, Alex and Summer returned to their room to shower quickly before meeting the group in the lobby. Summer tried to convince Riley to come with them, but she politely declined. Summer accepted her denial and promised to bring her back something to eat.
They had ultimately planned on going out somewhere more adult that evening but after spending the entire day with Summer, every single one of the guys felt bad ditching her at dinner time and happily accepted her recommendation of Chili's as a place to eat.
When Alex returned to his room later that night, he was happy to see Riley sitting on a lounge chair on the balcony with a book and a glass of wine. As he walked closer to her, he noticed her hair was wet and she had changed into different pajamas, which meant she showered so she was attempting to be normal.
"Hey," Alex said quietly when he was stood over the lounge chair. He could tell she was wrapped up in her book and didn't want to startle her.
Riley quickly turned her head up and smiled when she saw Alex. "Hey," she greeted him back, leaning upward to meet him halfway when Alex bent down to give her a kiss. "How was dinner?" she asked.
"You were missed, of course. But it was good," Alex answered, carefully sitting in the empty space of the lounge chair next to Riley. "Summer insisted on bringing you back something to eat so there's a to-go box with chicken fingers and fries inside if you're hungry."
"Thanks," she smiled, reaching for and holding up her wine glass. "Sounds like chicken fingers and fries will compliment my beverage choice well. I hope you don't mind that I opened one of the wine bottles from the mini-bar."
"Of course not," Alex said quietly with a shake of his head.
"You okay?" Riley asked, placing her glass back down and reaching for his hand.
Alex nodded. "I'm okay. The real question is if you're okay..."
Riley shrugged. "I will be," she answered truthfully.
Alex nodded slowly. "So, I'm okay and you will be okay. So that means Alex and Riley, as a pair, are also okay, right?"
Riley gave him a small smile and squeezed his hand. "Alex and Riley are perfectly okay."
"Okay," Alex repeated, satisfied. "I just like to keep checking."
Riley leaned forward again to kiss him but pulled back quickly when she realized something was missing. "Um, where's my child?"
Alex quickly brought his palm to his forehead and let out an overdramatic sigh. "Crap. I knew I was forgetting something..."
"You're such a jerk," Riley grumbled, reaching for her book and smacking Alex in the forearm.
"Ow," he frowned. "Relax. She's with Cass and Rian."
"Oh," Riley paused, looking at her cell phone to check the time. "Why?"
"Well, when Cass heard that you still weren't feeling well, she offered for her and Rian to take Summer for the night," Alex explained.
Riley let her eyebrows raise. "Why?"
Alex shrugged. "Because they're wonderful friends and Cass thought you could use a full night in a real bed to catch up on some rest and relaxation without having to worry about Summer."
Riley immediately felt guilty since clearly Alex knew she wasn't really sick. "But isn't this one of her last nights with Rian?"
Alex shrugged. "I don't know, babe. She offered. I told her it wasn't necessary but Cass insisted and then gave Rian some look and then Rian suddenly started insisting. Then Summer got all excited about the idea of a sleepover and it was a done deal from there."
"It's fine," Riley shrugged. "I just feel bad that Cassadee is giving up a night alone with her boyfriend, for me, for a bull crap reason."
"Well," Alex shifted uncomfortably in his seat next to her. "Maybe we can take advantage of this night alone."
Riley rolled her eyes. "Really?"
"That's not what I meant," Alex defended himself. "I was thinking that maybe we can talk through all of this shit finally."
"Alex..." Riley said with a long sigh.
"Look," he cut her off. "I get that whatever happened really has nothing to do with me. And I respect that. But I hate seeing you like this and I just want to fix it."
Riley shook her head. "I appreciate that, Alex, but I don't think this is something you can just fix."
"I know but I love you so I have to try."
Riley opened her mouth to say something but was interrupted by the ring of Alex's cell phone.He held up the screen to show it was Rian and answered quickly.
"Hello?"
"Hi Alex!" It was Summer. "We just got back to Rian and Cassadee's room so you can bring me my stuff now."
"You got it. I'll get it all together now and meet you down there in a few minutes."
"Okay. Don't forget Yoda!"
"I won't," Alex assured her.
"Okay, love you!"
Alex smiled to himself. "Love you, too, kid," he replied before they both ended the call.
Riley had a smile on her face as she watched Alex on the phone with Summer. It still absolutely warmed her heart at how close they were.
"All good?" she asked when he stood up and put his phone in his pocket.
"Yeah," Alex nodded. "On the way back from dinner, they stopped for sleepover snacks. They just got back to Rian's room so I'm going to gather Summer's stuff up and run it down to her."
"I'll go with you," Riley said, swinging her legs to the side of the chair.
"That's okay," Alex shook his head. "You stay. Read your book," he gestured to the Harry Potter book that sat next to her. "Maybe the Half Blood Prince will end differently this time."
Riley rolled her eyes at his joke and stood up. "I'm coming," she said and started walking inside their room.
"Okay," Alex replied, following her back inside. "Just don't forget to act sick."
"Shut up," Riley said, shooting him a glare as she dug through Summer's suitcase for a clean pair of pajamas and a change of clothes for the next morning.
Alex laughed as he grabbed Summer's pillow and stuffed Yoda doll off her bed. "I can't believe she still insists on sleeping with this thing," he said, waving the doll around.
"It's like a security blanket to her. She's slept with it every night since you bought it for her when we went to Disney almost three years ago," Riley explained, stuffing Summer's clothes, tooth brush, tooth paste and hair brush into a small backpack.
"That was a good trip," Alex reminisced, coming up behind Riley and kissing her cheek.
“It was,” Riley agreed, knowing exactly what about that trip he was referring. “Ready?”
“Yep,” he nodded, grabbing his room key and shoving it in his pocket as he followed Riley out of the room and down the hall to the elevator.
“Alex?” Riley said quietly after the elevator doors closed and he pressed the button for the seventeenth floor.
“Yes, dear?”
“When we get back to the room, I think we should talk.”
Alex tilted his head slightly and stared at her for a second. “Are you sure?”
She nodded. “I have to.”
“Okay,” he nodded. “As long as you’re sure,” he said as the elevator doors opened and Riley trailed behind him towards Rian’s room.
“I’m sure,” she assured him. “It will probably be good for me to finally really talk about it.”
“Okay,” Alex said again. “I’m in.”
Alex and Riley hung out in Rian and Cassadee’s room for a little while before saying their goodnights to Summer and heading back up to their rooms. Alex excused himself to the bathroom to change his clothes quick before he and Riley got deep into their talk.
When he emerged from the bathroom, Alex found Riley sitting in the middle of their bed fidgeting with the beaded bracelet around her wrist – a habit Alex learned she had when she was nervous.
“Should I crack open another bottle of wine?” Alex asked before taking a seat on the edge of the bed.
“No,” Riley shook her head. “I’m okay – unless you want…”
“I’m good,” Alex said, positioning himself at the head of the bed, leaning against the pillows and folding his arms over his chest. “I’m ready when you are.”
“Here goes…” Riley took a deep breath.
“Brian and I met when we were seven. His family moved from Michigan to Arizona and moved into the house next door to mine. The day they moved in, my mom went right over there, with a basket of goodies I’m sure, and welcomed them to the block. I came home from wherever I was and she told me how the family moved in next door, that they had a son my age and I should be friends with him since he moved from so far away and didn’t know anyone. I kind of just brushed it off because I was a seven year old girl and seven year old boys did not interest me.
“A few days later, I was outside drawing on the driveway with chalk when Brian and his mom came home from the store. Naturally, my mom called them over and invited Brian to draw with me and I guess I liked what he could do with chalk because we were basically inseparable from then on. We were best friends. Our parents became best friends. He would come with my family on vacations and I would go with his. Sometimes our families took vacations together…”
Alex nodded along as Riley continued with her story. He appreciated the history of her and Brian’s friendship but he really just wanted know how get ended up pregnant and giving birth in London without Brian.
“Did you always sort of secretly like each other?” Alex asked.
“No,” Riley shook her head. “Growing up I never looked at him that way. He was just my friend. Our families always teased us that we were going to get married one day but we just brushed it off.”
“Okay…” Alex said slowly. “So how do you go from cute seven year olds playing with chalk to secretly giving birth to his child?”
“When we were juniors in high school Brian had mentioned to me how he was starting to feel silly since all his friends had started hooking up with girls and he hadn’t yet. I admitted to feeling to same way. I was uncomfortable doing anything because I lacked experience and also because I hadn’t found anyone that I trusted enough to do anything with.”
“So, you did it with each other and then fell in love?” Alex cut in.
“Kind of…” Riley nodded. “We agreed to do it once, just to get the hang of it and then it just sort of kept happening every once in a while and by the time we were seniors it was happening a lot. We were basically a couple without actually being a couple. We tried to hide it from our friends but we were always stealing kisses here and there when we thought no one could see but everyone knew but no one really talked about it.”
“Did you ever go on dates with other people?”
“Yeah… Every once in a while and whenever we were dating other people, we’d stop hooking up. But those relationships would never last.”
Alex nodded and gestured for her to continue.
“The summer after my first year in college is when I found out I got accepted to the arts school program in London and Brian found out the Summer Set booked their first full US tour. We were both taking big steps toward our careers and while it was scary and sucked that we were going to be apart for the better part of three years, it was also really exciting.
“I was supposed to leave for London at the end of August and Brian would be leaving for tour a few weeks after that but it was the beginning of June that I found out I was pregnant. I was terrified and thought my life was over. I had no idea what I was going to do but after talking to Brian I felt slightly better. He assured me that no matter what ended up happening, he would be there for me and would not let me go through any of this on my own.
“We talked and talked and talked about what we were going to do. I thought if I had the baby, there was no way I could go to London and Brian kept saying if I gave up my opportunity in London, he would give up his opportunity to go on tour and I refused to let him do that. I didn’t want him to lose that opportunity and it wouldn’t have been fair to the rest of the band. I did research on my own and it turns out that Brian did some on his own as well. And after talking to my doctor a bit we decided that me getting an abortion would be the best for all of us.”
Alex reached over to grab Riley’s hand and give it a reassuring squeeze. He could detect a slight quiver in her voice so he knew she was getting upset. “It’s okay…”
Riley shook her head and blinked away tears. “Clearly I didn’t go through with it. But there are still some times I look at my daughter and wonder what I would have done if I didn’t have her.”
Alex sat up and reached over and ran his thumbs under Riley’s eyes, wiping some of her tears away and gently holding her face in his hands. “We don’t have to talk about this anymore if you don’t want to…”
“I want to,” Riley insisted, sniffling slightly.
Alex passed her a tissue from the box that sat on the night stand. “Go on…”
“We scheduled the appointment for the procedure with a Planned Parenthood a few towns over. There was one not too far from where we lived but I was terrified that someone we knew would see us going in. I made sure to book the appointment for when I knew my parents were going away so if I had any bad side effects after the procedure they wouldn’t be around to question why I was sick.
“The days leading up to the appointment I felt less and less comfortable with our decision. I didn’t think I would ever be able to get over the guilt. And after going on the internet and reading stories from other women who had gone through with it, a lot of them had said even though it had been years, they still never completely got over it. I started to freak out but I couldn’t talk to anyone about it. I didn’t want my parents to know. I couldn’t talk to Aunt Penny because I knew she would just tell me that I needed to talk to Brian. But I knew if I talked to him, he would have gone along with whatever I wanted and if I told him I was thinking about keeping the baby, he would have pulled the band out from that tour and I could not let that happen.
“The day of my procedure came and I had Brian drop me off at the clinic but I refused to let him go in with me. I insisted that it was something that I needed to do alone. I hadn’t completely made up my mind with what I was going to do but as I sat in the waiting room filing out what seemed like hundreds of piece of paperwork, I realized that I couldn’t go through with it. I gave the papers back to the receptionist and got the hell out of there. I walked around the city by myself for a while before I found a coffee shop that I just sat in the back of and cried to myself on and off for hours.
“I let Brian think that I had gone through with the procedure and decided that I would still go to London and do my best juggling school and being pregnant. I refused to let Brian throw away his career to be with me so the night before I left for London, when he drove me home and we said goodbye, I basically told him it was a permanent goodbye. I don’t remember the exact words that I said because it was such a hard thing for me to do but at the time I really thought I was doing the right thing.”
Alex watched as tears slipped down her cheeks slowly and he tried to make sense of everything he was just told. “So, once you were settled in London and realized that you were handle school and raising Summer, how come you never called Brian to tell him the truth?”
Riley shrugged, wiping at her eyes again. “I was embarrassed. I knew the choices I made were stupid, beyond stupid. And I knew he would never forgive me for lying to him and for cutting him and the rest of our friends out of my life completely.”
Alex sighed. “I’m sorry, Rile, but would you blame him for not forgiving you? I mean, this is some heavy shit…”
“I know that I don’t deserve his forgiveness,” Riley said quietly, looking down at her hands. “And I understand if you think I’m a piece of shit now, too.”
“Hey,” Alex said with a tone of voice more stern than he wanted, causing Riley’s head to snap up in his direction. “I do not think that you’re a piece of shit. Yeah, this is all a lot to process right now. And while I don’t necessarily agree with what you did, I can understand why you did what you did.”
“Thanks,” she mumbled.
“Come here,” he said, crawling towards the middle of the bed and pulling her into a tight hug. The second Alex’s arms tightened around her body, something snapped inside of her and tears began to pour from her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” she repeated, pressing her face firmly into Alex’s shoulder as she cried.
“I’m not the one you need to apologize to,” Alex said, rubbing small, comforting circles across her back.
“How am I supposed to apologize to Brian if he won’t even look at me, let alone talk to me?” Riley asked, looking up at Alex with big, red, swollen eyes.
“He’ll come around; I promise,” Alex assured her, pressing a light kiss to her forehead.
“No,” Riley said quickly, shaking her head. “Do not get involved, Alex.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You have to promise me that you will not get involved.” Riley insisted.
“How can I possibly get involved? I have nothing to do with this.”
“Alex,” she said, looking him in the eye. “Promise me that you won’t talk to him and try and convince him to talk to me. I don’t want things to get weird between you guys. I do not want to ruin another friendship because of the stupid decisions I made as a teenager.”
“I promise,” Alex said, rolling his eyes.
“Alex…” she repeated.
“I will not try to get Brian to talk to you,” he promised her, pausing to hold up three fingers. “Scout’s honor.”
Notes
Story Title: All Time Low - Dirty Laundry
I'll be honest, I am not one-hundred-percent in love with how this chapter came out but I really wanted to get something posted because I'm more excited for future things to come with this story. Maybe I'll go back and rewrite parts of this chapter at a later date depending on your feedback.
Hopefully whoever still reads this manages to like what's posted. *fingers crossed*
XO
If you could come back and update, that'd be great <3
1/23/19